The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-12-22


three.thousand-foot falls OF the Yose-
mite. She saw, and understood.
But none who see tho valley in sum-
mer time gain its full magnifcence.
One must live with il to grow into the
vastness and solitude Of it's grandest
graudure. The mountain maiden, with
the oxygen Of the air flaming in her
cheeks and lighting her eyes, SKINNED
on her snow shoes over pillows treach-
erous as the waves OF the sea. and was
given ideal pictures.
For the solitary blooms the desert
rose; for the solitary are upreared the
noun tain SHOWS. The best Of every
thing is seen in the company only of
God. In solitude we are closed with
the Most High, and, whether leaf thicket
or Ice cavern, it is the place of worship
and Joy. Therefore, the heart of the
maiden was stirred deepest, when on q
winters day, alone in the vast white
universe, she peered from Glacier Point,
into the frozen crater of jewels. Then
the valley shone in q white splen-
dor that its summer worshipers can
never see. Down the walls the falls
HULK uumO 1u0 AlOVlOu1CooS 6uSROAOCu
by an unseen hand, trailing miles Of
crushed jewels, opal and sapphire, and
emerald. Ell Captain lifted his white
plume among the army about him. The
exquisite Bridal Veil swept in frosty
tissue down the white robed cliff. The
Cathedral Spires rose crystal clear into
the blue sky, and on Clouds Rest, tho
white drifting nimbus of the sky
caressed their sister snowdr1fts Of the
peaks. The great pines of the valley
were cones of amethyst; the very air
was set with dazzling jewel points, and
the pure solitudos pulsed with impris-
oned sparks of heavenly fire.
An artist sketching the picturesque
groups of mountaineers, heard of "the
girl up yonder"-a glrl whose daily
haunts were where the clouds and ST.
lence wander, q maiden who was seated
beside the moon, while the stars twink
led like firefies about her.
In time he found her. Never flower
before bloomed like this snowfower be-
meath his gaze.
Shows can not smother passion, or stars
stir the pulses like the light :. nearer
eyes. To this ardent poetic soul, with
its disregard of fitness, of consistency,
or duty, or happiness beyond the pres
emit hour, the snowfower gave her life.
He bad found beauty, he worshipped it..
Tho humble eye is satisfied forever with
the shabby print of Madonna on
che wall, but new pictures replace the
old on the easel of the artist. His
search is always for beauty; having fix
ed one face upon the canvas his eye
roves for brighter cheek and SUMMER
hair.
But, for the time, she was his angel.
Disregarding the world, society, friends ;
forgetting education, style, culture
all that he would at another time re-
member-he took her from the heights
where she had been the companion of
nature, to show her to groveling, pu-
trid world.
Alas! Snowfower of the Sierras !!
Alas. that fatal name-that pure and
fatal name-hower of the SHOWS!
Did Fate christen thee, child of the
upper air? Hast never seen the beau
tiful sunfower drained of its rosy beau
ty, by ice-dripping tears? Dost thou
not know that the plant of the clouds
has never been transplanted to lower
fields?
The father talked wildly to the way
farers who came now and then to lift
his latch-string for nights shelter by
the cabin fire. He repeated, in wretch
ness, that retribution had overtaken
him. As cruelty as he had fled from
the wife of his youth, his girl had gone
from him. Not all his love or care
could prevent her from giving the blow
which fate had reserved for him. Nut
tering, or silent and glowering, the
weeks and months found him, until at
last he disappeared from his home and
was lost forever to human view.
This is the story the guide told me as
we stood by the fireless hearth of that
deserted home.
She died, poor girl-died of a broken
heart.
For those who dwell in lowlands, the
roses bloom; for creeping things there
are the MOSES and the violets. Each
plane in life has it's own corresponding,
recompensing loneliness. Let him who
lives in rose-thickets be content, nor
seek to pluck the blossoms of the crags
nor he who roams the SHOWS think to
keep in its freshness the rose that nature
left in warmer climes.
She died, so the story runs, on Christ
mas Eve. Many years ago at Christmas
time, in the dazzling radiance of q
moonlight night, wanderers on the
snow slopes saw phantom gliding on
pearly snowshoes over the glittering
peaks. She was shroudcd in white,
and out of her pale face her eyes CLEAN
ed like midnight stars. From noun
tain to mountain she wandered, and her
hands were full of blood blossoms,
that she kissed with lips as cold as they.
Every year since her earth life ended
the dead girl revisits her early home.
On those fields of snow, fit for an an
gels feet, before the Christmas morn
breaks in the East, this unforgetting
spirit walks on high. Sometimes she is
seen mufded in clouds; sometimes the
blossoms in her hands make rudy
patches in the wintry sky. Her voiceis
heard in the wailing songs of the rest
less winds, and the fall of her snow
shoes echoes like silver sleet down the
mountain side.
That the Divine Jesus, whose BIRTH
day we celebrate, brings holy thoughts
to men by devious means is not unlike.
Whatever makes men lift their eyes
raises the soul; whether the sweep of
wings that startled the shepherds, or
the dying color on the distant cloud,
turns the face upward to the gaze of
God.
Lo, not unmeet is it that at the time
when, Of old, the angel-heralded Christ
child came, all along the sides Of the
solemn Sierras, the lowly, the lonely,
the wretched, the wicked, gaze upward,
for the form of the pure maiden, who
loves and haunts the snow-range Of the
air.
Children are told to be good that they
may see the beautiful lady who was
taken from her home on high, treated